Tired of the Scraps

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Christopher Williams: Hi everyone, it’s Christopher Williams. Well, it’s that time of year. Many of us are busy launching new seasons and strategizing for upcoming programs. It’s always a period filled with so much excitement and possibility, but for our friends in Florida arts organizations, that excitement this year is dampened by the state’s substantial cuts to arts and culture funding. In case you missed it, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed more than $30 million in state grants that fund arts and culture organizations. That decision left hundreds of institutions scrambling to find funding and fill holes left in their budgets. The impact is significant. For smaller organizations, state grants aren’t just supplementary. They’re essential for keeping the doors open and the lights on. And for larger organizations, state funding allows for ambitious projects that would otherwise be unattainable. By reducing financial support, the state is undermining the social and economic contributions our industry provides. Arts and culture are not luxuries. They are vital components of a healthy society. In today’s episode, I talk with Chris Brown, the executive director of Orlando Family Stage and a vocal advocate for restoring state funding. We’ll discuss the impact of these budget cuts on the state’s cultural landscape, what you can do to make a difference, and how we can all better communicate the social and economic benefits of the arts to our constituents. Let’s take a listen.

Chris Brown, welcome to CI to Eye.

Chris Brown: Thank you so much for having me.

Christopher Williams: So for context for all of our listeners, before we jump into the meat and potatoes of why we’re having a conversation today, tell us about Orlando Family Stage as a starting point.

Chris Brown: Absolutely. I feel incredibly blessed to be leading Orlando Family Stage. I’ve been here for 15 years. It’s Florida’s only professional theater for young audiences, or T-Y-A. And that means that everything under our umbrella, one hundred percent of the time, all year long, is geared towards kids and families. And we organize our work into three lines of business. We have our professional theater for young audiences where we’re producing shows. We have our youth academy where the kids get to perform and take camps and classes and produce shows. And then we have our arts-based learning, which is all of our work in the community and in the schools.

Christopher Williams: So for everyone listening, Orlando Family Stage is actually a client of ours. And so the reason why we’re talking about this today is because the consultant who works on their account dropped this news item into our Slack. And I in particular just—I was outraged when I read this news item, and my initial reaction was like, we’ve got to have Chris on the podcast. So can you take us back and tell us about what happened?

Chris Brown: I don’t want to relive that, but yeah. So we submitted our kind of annual state funding grants. [It’s] a really rigorous grant process that we apply for about this time every year. Those applications are then scored on a rubric by a panel. If you meet above the threshold, you are recommended for full funding. In my category of our size organization, that’s $150,000. And so the legislature then comes back into session and the legislature is tasked with creating the budget for the upcoming fiscal year for the state of Florida. And so through this process each year, it really ebbs and flows, right? In my time at this organization, there are some years when we get full funded and we get $150,000. There’s other years that are a little tighter, maybe a little different priorities in the state. And the arts budgets get knocked down a little bit, but this year the legislature cut the $150 in half. And so at the end of the budgeting process, the budget that the legislature took to the governor’s desk supported the arts in, and I’m getting the numbers wrong, I’m sure, but about $32 million in the state budget. So that gets to the governor’s desk, and the governor vetoed the arts and culture lines right out of the budget. And he basically said the fringe festivals are sexual festivals out there, and I can’t understand spending taxpayer dollars on that sort of thing. So two weeks, three weeks before our fiscal year started, that funding was wiped away. And I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention in our sector lately, but $70,000 going away… it really hurts. Especially because of the statements about the fringe festivals and the gross misunderstanding there. By definition, there are fringe artists and acts and things that really push the boundaries, but not to be categorized like that. That is just not reality.

Christopher Williams: And you got some specific attention paid to you because of a response that you made in I believe the Sentinel. Yes?

Chris Brown: Yes, the Orlando Sentinel. I was feeling spicy. When things like that happen, it is really easy to sort of feel like you can’t do anything. It’s just out of your control. And I felt the need to at least voice another perspective out into the world. And I did not expect the Orlando Sentinel to print the op-ed, but they did. They pushed it out and it got really a bigger response than I could have ever thought it would get.

Christopher Williams: It was a beautiful piece. It was very data-driven and incredibly compelling. I felt like it saw everything from every angle. So talk to us a little bit about, you made such good salient points about this in your letter. Talk to us about the economic impact of the arts generally, specifically in the state of Florida. Certainly a lot of people who listen to this particular podcast work in the industry, but there are always shadow listeners. There are spouses in the car or friends in the car who are also hearing it. Not everyone actually understands the role that we play. And I thought you did such a great job of using data to make those points.

Chris Brown: Yeah, thank you. Many people just think what we do is just providing entertainment, but entertainment is unique. We’re not only generating economic activity by ourselves just with our own business functions of producing shows. I hire, I have about almost 200 people on the payroll every year, like seasonal employees that come and go. We are providing a ton of jobs and a ton of economic activity by ourselves. And when you couple that with the audience, them coming to the theater and paying for tickets, but also buying concessions, buying merchandise, going out to lunch afterwards. Maybe they’re in town for a couple of days, they’re going to stay at the hotel and come and see a show. They’re going to stay here for a week while their kids are in camps. It’s really pretty remarkable when you start really adding it up, if you pay attention long enough to add it up. So many people that I interact with, they just sort of think of what we do as something extra. It’s a fun thing to do on the weekend and that’s where it lives. But I think if you peel back the onion a little bit, the arts and culture community is like three and change percent of the total GDP of Florida. That’s a massive number. And if you send that all around the nation, it’s incredible. It’s right up there with transportation or housing or any of these other sort of more familiar things in the business and finance world. Yes, it’s a theater or yes, it’s an art museum or yes, it’s a fringe festival, but these are all small businesses. And if you take what we do and you put it more in the context of what the rest of the world considers a small business, then you find many more commonalities in the language and in other people’s ability to understand what you’re talking about.

Christopher Williams: Yeah, because the type of businesses we are are arts and culture businesses. We are nonprofits, and that is simply a tax status.

Chris Brown: That’s it.

Christopher Williams: Interestingly enough, the state of Florida alone says that arts and culture organizations generate nearly 6 billion a year in economic activity.

Chris Brown: And almost 300,000 jobs. These are no longer small numbers when you put them all together. And if I’m generating hotel room nights and economic development out of my organization and taxes back to the local government, we’re doing everything we’re supposed to be doing—and then some, because the state also says there’s a nine to one return on that investment. So the economic activity that we’re generating is moving the needle. That sentiment is few and far between, right? Most of the time our organizations sort of get painted as a boy who cried wolf or the whiny arts organization always looking for a handout. And it’s like, no, no, no. Any small business that got $75,000 removed out of their budget weeks before they needed it, they’re going to be in the same place. So stop trying to paint it like we don’t know what we’re doing, and start acknowledging the insane headwinds that we continue to face as a sector. And you see it all over the country.

Christopher Williams: A hundred percent.

Chris Brown: Yeah.

Christopher Williams: And you play an important role for other arts organizations in your market. For example, you are essentially introducing the arts to children and giving them that first opportunity maybe to decide that this is something that they will participate in in life so that then your neighbor down the street, the Dr. Phillips Center, can benefit from their attendance as adults. And so this is about a lifelong journey for a large constituency of people.

Chris Brown: A hundred thousand percent.

Christopher Williams: And you’ve talked about the role this plays on the mental health of children, which I thought was a really strong and compelling point of view as well.

Chris Brown: Our young people are really in a crisis and the rates of loneliness, anxiety, and depression are all exploding. And we know from other research that the theater creates belonging and connection. And so we work really hard to make sure that everybody that walks through our doors feels like they belong there. We want a warm and welcoming environment so that you feel comfortable, so that you can open up your mind and learn new things, be inspired, learn creativity, and ultimately at the end of the day, build stronger connections with those around you.

Christopher Williams: Children learning about courage and empathy is so important. I think back on how the arts shaped me as a young person, and I feel like so many kids can tell the story that I’m about to tell, which is I was lucky enough to have a really amazing band director. I had this band director from sixth grade until I graduated from high school, and he was an incredibly compelling man, and I was a band geek, so that was my particular way into the arts initially. And the thing that’s so interesting to me now, as a 50-something-year-old man, to look back on is: I actually learned the fundamentals of leadership that I employ today from him then through art. And I just know so many people who can tell stories like that. Someone just told me a story the other day that they really learned to be a resilient person through learning how to be in their high school theater program. It’s just like these are amazing opportunities for children.

Chris Brown: But think about what that process is to create a show. You have to collaborate together. You have to communicate to designers and creatives and technicians and people building it. And all of this stuff has to come together and then work at the same time.

Christopher Williams: Listen, stage managers could run the world.

Chris Brown: They could run the world.

Christopher Williams: They could run the world. Shout out to all the SMs out there.

Chris Brown: It’s real. It’s real.

Christopher Williams: It really is. It really is. If I may, I’d love to see if I can get you to sort of represent the feelings and interests of the larger community in Florida. I’m sure people were affected by this funding cut in a lot of different ways. I’m just sort of curious, how is the community across the state generally feeling on the other side of a harsh decision like this, and what is the community doing to try to overcome it?

Chris Brown: I think the community as a whole is just disappointed. The smaller groups around town might fall closer to just devastated, I think. Man, we’re just tired. We’re just exhausted. It’s very jarring to see every other week an article in the Times or in the Wall Street Journal or something where a theater’s closing or a theater’s pushing out a fundraising campaign to save us because we have a million dollar deficit and all of this. And man, that is so frustrating because at the end of the day, I just think it’s a misunderstanding of how important the work is. We scratch and claw for every single dollar that we have to beg for, and that’s disappointing.

Christopher Williams: Listen, I am coming to you from a very blue bubble kind of state that would never make this kind of choice. And that to me actually is why it was important to do this episode, because not everyone is operating an arts organization in a climate that is a little bit more friendly to us. But I’m curious, because this happened, how the media coverage has been. Do you feel like they gave you attention? Was it fair? And by you, I mean all of you. Was it fair and ultimately, did you feel like the public understood the impact that this would have on everyone?

Chris Brown: That’s so interesting because on one hand, absolutely. I think after I wrote that op-ed, I think four out of the six news stations in town were in my office and wanting to do interviews and talking about it. But there’s kind of a second layer where I want to say it’s not great response. I’m certainly not inundated with checks from people that care and want to help us. It’s almost like it’s just this story that fits the narrative that we all know: the struggling arts organization, it needs more money. It’s helping that narrative. And it’s one of the drivers of my article, right, to say, hold on, this is not a fricking narrative. Pay attention and look at the things that we’re having to deal with. Do we need to lose all these arts institutions before we pay attention? Or are we going to acknowledge that these places are amazing and doing a beautiful thing in our world and we should be making sure they’re thriving, not surviving? The state’s surplus this year is like a $17 billion surplus or something. There was no reason to cut $30 million out because in the state’s budget, that is scraps. We’re not talking about the arts organizations all rolling in gold. Nobody—that doesn’t exist. I’m tired of the scraps. That’s so insulting. I don’t want to work hard for the scraps. I want to flip the table over and get people to see it a different way.

Christopher Williams: Yes!

Chris Brown: It’s important.

Christopher Williams: Yeah. That point in your letter where you talk about that $17 billion—billion with a B—billion dollar surplus in the context of this cut is particularly difficult to traverse. So our arts organizations across the country, I think that we largely are some the loudest voices in promoting diversity and inclusion, certainly amongst children. And I think to then suffer a cut like this across so many organizations in Florida specifically is particularly alarming for me because you’re the organizations that are largely doing the Lord’s work to support all of these underrepresented artists and communities and children.

Chris Brown: Well, so get this one. So this morning I got an email from a school. We’ve done a bunch of Junie B. Jones plays at Orlando Family Stage. Junie B. Jones is a huge children’s book character. There’s probably 30 books of Junie B. Jones. And we got a message this morning that says, I was writing to let you know that our school will not be able to attend the showing of Junie B. Jones on October 31st. One of the books in the series is on the banned list, and our admin has not okayed us to go. We’re sorry to miss it. So… that shit’s real.

And I have a letter, a handwritten letter, that’s framed over here on my desk that is from apparently a donor. I cannot confirm that this is a donor because it’s anonymous, but they were furious that we put a Black Lives Matter banner up on our building outside, and they wrote me hate mail and said, we will never support your theater again. We will not send you any money. Like, shame on you. That’s absurd that we live in a world like that. And I see every day the kids showing up on buses, the parents whose kids are impacted… I know we do a good thing. And we want to use our means, whatever that might be, to try and make this better.

Christopher Williams: That is scary. I was actually not at all prepared to hear a story like that, but I am so glad that you said it because I think it is important for all of us to know that there are organizations like yours with arts admins inside of it who have to do the work that we all do in environments like that, and to fight against that, to create the space that everyone needs. Yeah, that’s hard to hear, Chris. Your passion for what you do is quite contagious.

Chris Brown: Thank you.

Christopher Williams: And you’re quite inspiring doing this in the environment that you’re doing it in. So I’ll just say that very plainly. If people are listening to this and they also feel inspired and they want to do something to support you guys, where should we send them?

Chris Brown: Oh, I mean, I am so humbled by generosity in people. I’m so grateful for anyone who wants to contribute time, energy, talent. And so the easiest way, if you’re local? Come see a show. Come see one of our great shows. We have an amazing season this year. And then if you’re not local, check us out online. Subscribe to our social media accounts, get involved in that way and help spread our good message, right? We’re trying to make the world a better place. Check out our website, find different things. There’s tons of different options for contributing financially, philanthropically. You can do sponsorships, you can bring field trips to a show. You can give and support in that way. Absolutely every bit of it helps move the needle. It really does. Whether it’s $2 or $200, it all goes to a great place.

Christopher Williams: There was something in there that everyone could afford to do, so that was a great answer. Okay, we have reached the end of our time together. It means we’ve also reached your CI to Eye moment, as we like to call it. So my final question for you, Chris, is if you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams, staff, and boards of a thousand arts organizations, what would it be?

Chris Brown: Keep going. Find peers to connect with because those connections can give you perspective. And don’t back down. Let’s fix this. This is not a problem with Central Florida. It’s exacerbated in Central Florida, but it is around the nation, and I don’t like seeing theaters close all over the place. We need to really understand the value and what these skills and these experiences can truly do for our future. More empathy is needed in the world. We teach kids… So the mission is: we empower kids to be brave and empathetic. We need empathy in the world right now. We need to be caring for our neighbor, and we need to be brave enough and confident enough to speak up when we know we need to. So keep chugging out there, executives. I’m with you and I’m rooting for you. And if you need to get away from your snow, just come on down to Orlando.

Christopher Williams: Well said. So Chris Brown, executive director of Orlando at Family Stage, I thank you for your time.

Chris Brown: Thank you so much, Christopher! It was a pleasure.

Dan Titmuss: Hi everyone. Dan here. So before you skip to the next podcast in your queue, stick with us for a quick round of CI-lebrity Sightings. Here are some news stories about arts and culture that we found inspiring recently. Opera Philadelphia made a splash by announcing a pay-what-you-can model for their 2024–2025 season—the first of its kind by a major opera company. You can read all about their efforts to attract new audiences in the New York Times article, “A Bargain At The Opera: Philadelphia Offers All Seats For As Low As $11.” And the Apollo announced their first ever full-scale renovation, which includes an expanded lobby, new seating, upgraded backstage areas, and more. You can geek out over the details and renderings in The Architect’s Newspaper. Snaps to these two organizations for continuing to innovate and serve more community members than ever before. Got a story that deserves a shout out? Tag us on social and let us know.

Thank you for listening to CI to Eye. This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss. Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CI to Eye’s designers and video editors, and all work together to create CI’s digital content. Our music is by whoisuzo. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to rate us or leave a review. A nice comment goes a long way in helping other people discover CI to Eye and hear from experts in the arts and beyond. If you didn’t enjoy today’s episode, pass it on to all of your enemies. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok for regular content to help you market smarter. You can also sign up for our newsletter at capacity interactive dot com so you never miss an update. And if you haven’t already, please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, stay nerdy.